Monument record MDO5812 - Bowl Barrow, one of the Launceston South Down Group, Long Crichel

Bowl Barrow, 25 feet in diameter and up to 1 foot high. No longer extant as an earthwork. Excavated in 1938. Found to have held a primary crouched inhumation tightly bound and apparently placed there in a bag.

A probable Early Bronze Age bowl barrow, part of a group on Crichel and Launceston Downs excavated in 1938. The barrow is no longer extant as an earthwork. Prior to excavation the mound was 25 feet in diameter. Trenching revealed a shallow ditch which enclosed an area of circa 22 feet diameter. The mound was up to 1 foot high. Beneath the centre of the mound was a large sub-oval pit 5 feet by 4 feet and up to 2.5 feet deep beneath the natural chalk. A platform of chalk rubble lay on one side of the floor of the ditch, and the excavators assumed that this must once have extended across the whole of the pit floor, suggesting that the grave had been disturbed and robbed at some time in the past, although the evidence is far from clear-cut in the published report. On the chalk platform was a tightly flexed inhumation, the right hand resting on the shoulder, and the left knee appearing to be inside the mouth. The excavators suggested that the body had been buried within a bag or other organic container. This site was originally recorded as part of ST 91 SE 60. Visited by MPPA in March 2000, but since all are heavily denuded, not recommended for scheduling.

Record last edited

Aug 30 2022 9:41AM